The Fire Bringers: An I Bring the Fire Short Story (IBF Part 6.5) Read Online Free PDF

“Can you turn off the alarm?”
    The alarm stops and so does the flashing of the red lights. And then they immediately start again. “You tripped another wire,” Steve says.
    “Well untrip — ”
    “Be quiet!” Steve hisses. Bohdi almost snaps back, but then he notices that Steve’s bionic eye is completely lit up, and his other is wide with alarm. “I can’t connect with the research station in the Tenth Realm.”
    There’s only another ten steps in the stairwell. Bohdi pulls out a marble, and steps through the In Between anyway.
    x x x x
    Bohdi emerges through the World Gate to the Tenth Realm and curses. A Promethean Wire “container” has been dropped over the gate’s platform. Human sized and shaped like a bell jar, it has auto lock clips at the bottom that adhere it to the floor. Circling it are ten Einherjar in full magical Kevlar armor, with rifles already upraised. “Halt there, we have Promethean wire-tipped bullets,” one orders.
    The bullets could kill him, but Bohdi doesn’t halt. The men fire and Bohdi slips through time, ala Sleipnir. Unlike Odin’s trick of stopping time itself — which wouldn’t stop the Promethean bullets — Bohdi leaves time behind completely. The bullets appear suspended in midair in the quiet twilight he enters, and the alarms are mercifully silent. He circles the Promethean container but sees no console to lift it. He curses … and then sees the ghostly shimmer of Steve’s projection at the door of the ballroom. Steve’s still in real time, and his projection doesn’t even blink. Bohdi almost immediately goes to Steve’s side, but then thinking of the bullets that had just been fired at him, plucks the rifles from the Einherjars' hands first.
    Dumping all but one of the rifles at his feet, he slips back into time beside Steve—just in time to hear the bullets impacting against the walls over the scream of the alarms.
    The alarm goes silent and Steve hisses at Bohdi. “You could have waited for me.”
    Before Bohdi can respond, the guards’ cries of surprise fill the ballroom. “Where are our rifles?”
    Bohdi whistles, smiles, and waves the one in his hands.
    Narrowing his insubstantial eyes at him, Steve’s projection booms, “Einherjar!” All eyes snap from Bohdi to Steve.
    The guards’ jaws drop, and their eyes flit between Bohdi, standing above the pile of their rifles, and Steve, just a few steps away. Bohdi can tell the instant the headpieces they wear tucked behind their ears have determined that it is a projection of the real Steven Rogers, Director of Inter-Realm Cooperation, Commerce, and Interventions. They stand just a fraction taller, their jaws get a little harder, and their eyes light with respect. The closest Bohdi ever has gotten to that look is fear … but these guys don’t know him, which is probably for the best — people do stupid things when they’re afraid.
    “Lift the container,” Steve commands.
    “Director,” one says. “Communications to the Tenth Realm have been cut off. We’re following standard procedures so that — ”
    “I know that, Commander Hsu,” Steve says. “But I am altering that protocol. Civilian lives are at risk. Lift the container.”
    “Yes sir,” the man who must be Hsu says.
    Hsu waves his hand, murmurs a few words, and a little light flashes on his headpiece. The auto locks disengage and the container is lifted from above.
    Bohdi narrows his eyes at Steve. “You could have done that,” he hisses.
    “You already disorientated them enough,” Steve mutters.
    “Sir, should we prepare for a rescue party?” Hsu says.
    Steve’s eyes slide to Bohdi. He tilts his head. “What do you feel, Mr. Patel?”
    Bohdi can feel all eyes on him, and normally he gets a kick out of moments when the Director of Virtually Everything defers to him, the skinny unknown wearing a blue choker and dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt. But he can’t gloat; he’s too keyed up, too worried. Instead he focuses at a